God Wisely & Lovingly Cares

I had day surgery recently, nothing too serious, but enough to put me out for a brief time and need some serious TLC.   I was reminded of how wonderful it is to have a cohort of loving family and friends to gather round me, take care, encourage, and tenderly oversee my recovery. 

Providentially, my reading today dovetailed with this principle of ‘family belonging’ and the divine goodness of God in how he provides for our spiritual care and development.  This reading was not in the area of biological family, but in the parallel entity of church family.  God’s NT design of church membership is the sterile label for what we understand as relational, loving, responsible care and oversight of our fellow sisters and brothers in the Body of Christ—our spiritual family.  And how important and masterful is its intention!

May I take the next few blog posts to reprint some key parts of my reading today? It comes from a  chapter of Heart, Soul, and Might*.  My hope is that you’ll be encouraged, challenged, and better informed of our God and another of his brilliant designs!

From Paul to Spanky: Musings on Membership* by Jonathan Pratt

In one of the episodes of the Little Rascals series Spanky and Alfalfa formed “The He-Man Womun Haters Club.” This was a very elite organization, and members had to meet some high requirements: they had to be male and they had to have a great dislike for girls. While the enigmatic nature of The He-Man Womun Haters Club might not appeal to the readers of this article, most can relate to the desire of belonging to a group. Back during your school days you may have joined the ski club, chess club, scouts, photo club, basketball team, or yearbook staff. And things have not changed much for us as adults either. We have exercise clubs, book clubs, business organizations, fantasy football leagues, support groups, VFWs, ad infinitum. And just like Spanky and Alfalfa’s club, all of these organizations have membership requirements, guidelines which tell everyone who belongs and who does not.

                The Bible also speaks of clubs or organizations. In the OT God’s covenant people, the Hebrews, constituted a special group; the only requirement necessary for membership in this group was being Jewish. The twelve disciples were a specific group of Christ’s followers, chosen directly by him. That same group (minus Judas Iscariot) sought to identify some specific requirements that would be used to add an apostle to their number (Acts 1:15–26). It was not surprising, then, to anyone that the organization headed by Christ and designated as his body, the church, should have specific requirements for membership. There were two: saving faith in Jesus Christ alone and water baptism (Acts 2:41).

                From its beginnings in Acts 2 to the present day, the true church has held these requirements as necessary for one’s identification with a local assembly. Nevertheless in recent years, two types of believers have begun to question the need for local church membership. First, we have the “Universal Church” proponents who argue, “I am a member of the universal church; why should I join a local assembly?” Second, we have the “Regular Attenders” who enjoy the benefits of worshipping and even serving in the local assembly of their choice without officially joining the membership.

I will address only the second of these membership opponents in this article. 

Regular Attenders.

“Modern times have brought us many comforts” from computers to iPods to heated floors to electric blankets to garage door openers. But with these innovations in technology and science, modern times have also revealed a disturbing trend in evangelical churches: the existence of unattached Christians. Fifty years ago the idea of “regular attenders” would not have made any sense to Bible believers. Up to that time in the history of the church virtually all true Christians were members of the church in their locale. The idea that one would call himself a Christian and not be joined together with fellow Christians in a local church was inconceivable. But, oh, how things have changed! For example, one Baptist church in the Twin Cities averages 3600 attenders but has only 1700 members. And this is not an isolated phenomenon.

More and more Christians are finding it 

easy to attend, but difficult to join.

The “regular attenders.” appreciate the opportunity to join together with fellow believers in worship, and sometimes, they even participate in ministry where permitted. Yet for various reasons they choose to avoid membership. I would suggest that “regular attenders” make a big mistake when they do this. Their failure to join together with the members of their church is harmful to their individual walks with Christ and to the rest of the assembly as a whole. I can think of at least three reasons, Biblically founded, why “regular attenders” ought to join the membership of their local church.

See my next post for the continuation of this discussion….

(*Heart, Soul, and Might is a compilation of various devotional readings by the faculty of Central seminary, edited by Kevin Bauder.  The chapter excerpted above is written by Jonathan Pratt, and is a reprint from the Eden Baptist Church quarterly newsletter, Vox Ecclesia. A sampling of its past issues can be viewed at http://www.edenbaptist.org/category/newsletter/